


Half-Realisations.

by pearlydewdrop



Series: Cute, Dorky and a Wee Bit Mental (Collection of Random Derry Girls Stories!) [7]
Category: Derry Girls (TV)
Genre: Awkward Crush, Cack Attack, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Fluff and Mush, Friends to Lovers, Human Disaster Erin Quinn, Idiots in Love, Inspired by Erin's Diary (The Official Derry Girls Book), Lovable Eejits!, Post-Season/Series 02, Quotes from the diary are in bold, Teen Romance, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29040261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearlydewdrop/pseuds/pearlydewdrop
Summary: Erin signed off her letter to James, punctuating its ending with three little kisses and a sigh of relief.
Relationships: James Maguire/Erin Quinn
Series: Cute, Dorky and a Wee Bit Mental (Collection of Random Derry Girls Stories!) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044645
Comments: 9
Kudos: 28





	Half-Realisations.

**Half-Realisations.**

**You're _one of my best friends in the whole wide world, and if you were to leave, I'd miss you. I'd really miss you. So please...don't try anything like that again._ **

**_Erin xxx_ **

She signed off her letter to James, punctuating its ending with three little kisses and a sigh of relief. 

Sitting back to appraise her work, Erin's eyes lingered over the words scribbled out before her, not in the usual self-admiring manner that she generally tended towards but in a way that felt...well, a wee bit heavier somehow. 

As soon as she was home and tucked up in bed, Erin had pulled out her diary to record the events of the day, a day truly symbolic of real change.

...as the cheers for Bill Clinton grew louder, she and the girls had barrelled into James on the bridge overlooking the parade before colliding into a tangle of limbs and laughter. 

In that moment, they had been far too happy to have him back to give a flying fuck about anything else! Arms around one another, they had headed away from the festivities, their world cast anew in more ways than one..

Even hours later, Erin was only starting to become truly at ease with what had happened, fully wrapping her head around the fate they'd so narrowly avoided. With only minutes until the Clintons were set to arrive, James had stood in front of them at the parade. Desperate for his mother's approval, he had been so very nearly ready to return to London...all on the off-chance that his Ma would finally start showing that she loved him, cared about him. 

But they already loved him! They cared about him! 

...Erin cared about him! 

So much so that the thought of James leaving Derry had rendered her speechless. Erin had found herself ( _quite uncharacteristically)_ at a loss for everything; no words, no breaths, no thoughts... _nothing_! Only a pure blank white heartbroken shock...

_Thank Christ that Michelle had had no such problem!_

For her friend's quick call to action, Erin was relieved...more relieved than she could possibly hope to express with words. 

James was staying. In Derry. With them. Exactly where he belonged. 

With them. With her... _maybe_.

As she sat in bed, Erin took the rare opportunity to examine her feelings a little closer than usual. Instinctively, her gaze fell upon the half-formed love-heart that she'd drawn at the top right hand corner of James's letter...the one she'd hastily scribbled out and replaced with a much less incriminating star. 

In the weeks following Jenny Joyce's shit-show of a prom, Erin may have caught feelings for James. Maybe. Sort of. Just a wee bit. 

(Not that she'd be admitting that to anyone, herself included, anytime soon!)

It had started out fairly simply, beginning in soft hopeful smiles, linked arms and the unspoken promise that Erin didn't need to be anyone but herself to impress him. 

However, the truth still remained that she was no where near ready to accept her feelings for James. Erin tried desperately to shrink the strange glowing ball of affection that threatened to swell up inside of her at even the mere thought of her friend. Her dorky English... _curly_ friend. 

It was a completely new but oddly familiar feeling, one that made Erin's heart flutter tentatively and threatened to cause her all sorts of havoc. 

James had almost left them. Left Derry. Left her...

But he hadn't. James had stayed...

...and unsurprisingly the aftermath had left Erin with a whole host of confusing and conflicting emotions that busied themselves by driving her wild. 

_She didn't like like James, did she? Was that even allowed? Did such a thing even bear thinking of? And if it did, wouldn't liking James just ruin everything?_

Erin thought of the brief moment when her forehead was pressed against his as all five of them stood bundled together in a squirmy exhilarated embrace. 

She and James were friends. Good friends. The best of friends! Surely, that was enough...

Of course it was!

To distract herself from falling down any other unwelcome rabbit holes that were filled thoughts she was just not quite ready for, Erin flicked through the pages of her diary. 

That was safe, right? 

She found herself alternating between cringes of embarrassment and fond smiles as she recalled her and the gang's various escapades over the last twelve months. _Accidentally killing a grumpy oul nun, witnessing a religious apparition, accusing a sneaky ungrateful Ukrainian of being a prostitute, accidentally killing a grumpy oul aunt...just all the usual sort of stuff!_

Unexpectedly, a random magazine questionnaire that she saved months earlier caught Erin's attention...one apparently designed to help a girl identify her perfect fella. Her answers had been mostly 'C's, a rather decisive majority leading to one possible conclusion...

**' _He's a good friend who knows you at your best - and worst. Maybe it's time you saw him in a new way! Before you know it, friendship could turn into L.O.V.E.'_**

_Enough!_

Snapping her diary shut, Erin felt her cheeks burn and her stomach fill with the fluttering wings of nervous butterflies. The wee critters were going absolutely mental, so they were! 

Practically bulging out of her skull, her eyes darted anxiously around the room. As was only typical of her life, Erin half expected some family member or other to appear and interrupt her bizarre moment of half-realisation. 

_(Which, in all honesty, she may have even welcomed!)_

_L.O.V.E._..that couldn't be right, could it? 

_Surely, not!_

Erin huffed out a shaky breath, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

_So much for reading back over her own fecking diary being safe!!!_

Unsurprisingly, she found herself torn between a full blown cack attack and a complete descent into denial. As the gears turned inside her head, Erin's flustered heart was next-door-near to bursting out of her chest...

She liked James! Perhaps she even _L.O.V.E.D_ James! Her total raw devastation at the thought of him leaving suddenly made a wee bit more sense, alongside several other seemingly uncorrelated events over the past year. 

_The Ukrainian incident, reaching for James during Rock the Boat, teasing him about his stupid Daphne costume from Scooby Doo_ _...all of it culminating in the night of the prom..._

_Oh no...oh no....oh....F-----_


End file.
